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FATVillage: the ultimate blueprint for arts districts

By Tamara HinsonSpecial to the Star

Fri., May 5, 2017

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA.-On the last Saturday of every month, FATVillage’s artists and technologists fling open their doors for ArtWalk so people can see their work and check out the area’s transformation.

Pop-up bars and food trucks set up shop as locals and tourists wander through the street-art adorned neighbourhood, stopping to check out live bands, peer inside studios and check out work by local artists, such as Leandra Arvazzetti.

At Brew Urban Café, menus take the form of books and a vintage caravan is home to a gift shop. (Tamara Hinson)

At Brew Urban Café, menus take the form of books and a vintage caravan is home to a gift shop. (Tamara Hinson)

FATVillage co-working space General Provision is the brainchild of Tim Hasse. (Tamara Hinson)

FATVillage, which stands for Flagler Arts and Technology, covers four blocks near downtown with 36 subsidized tenants, including cafés, bars, studios and marketing agencies. And you don’t have to attend the ArtWalks to check out the art. In addition to artists’ studios there are several galleries, including Art Trax Studios and Gallery, also the setting for regular workshops, and Box Gallery, known for its contemporary art.

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Even the local barbershop doubles as a gallery. Inside Monarchs Cut & ShaveMonarchs Cut & Shave, where patrons are offered complimentary beers or shots while they wait to have their hair cut, paintings by local artists hang from the walls. Monarchs also sells its own line of hats and clothing, and the salon turns into an exhibition space during ArtWalks.

At Brew Urban Café Next Door, antique chandeliers dangle from the ceiling and shelves heave with thousands of books. A cute Airstream trailer, which doubles as a boutique, is tucked into one corner.

Next door is General Provision, a place where rooms can be booked for short periods of time and a red light indicates the need for privacy. The light-adorned booths are simply spaces for people who need a little more privacy while they work.

General Provision is a co-working space/bar/club that offers different memberships plans, depending on whether visitors simply need a base from which to work during a short visit to Fort Lauderdale, or a more permanent arrangement, with all the facilities of traditional office space, including a huge meeting room (albeit one with a ping-pong table). Founder Tim Hasse’s aim has been to build a creative co-working space, and regulars include writers, artists and app designers. It’s like FATVillage in miniature.

Arts districts are popping up everywhere, from Woodstock in Cape Town to Stokes Croft in Bristol, England, and trendy Wynwood Walls in Miami, Fla. But the people behind FATVillage insist it’s different.

“FATVillage is sometimes considered to be in the shadow of Miami, but there’s a completely different flavour here,” says Neil Ramsay, founder of the not-for-profit ArtsUP!

“This area is actually older than Wynwood. That regentrification process, that attitude of ‘Let’s sprinkle some artists on top, incubate it for five years and then it will become a retail mecca with a particular look and feel,’ hasn’t occurred, because there’s always been art here. It’s in the DNA of the place, so it’s more stable than other areas.”

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Alabaman art collector Doug McCraw founded FATVillage in the late 1990s after buying old warehouses in the once-neglected Flagler neighbourhood.

“There were all these warehouses dating back to when the railroad was built,” says McCraw, as a train rumbles past. “The city wanted to tear them down, but I felt they were architecturally interesting. They were built in the 1950s and you can’t recreate that esthetic — there’s an authenticity there.”

When the dot.com boom fizzled out, his plans took a blow, but McCraw, who has lived in Fort Lauderdale since 1976, persevered and creative types were soon clamouring to set up shop here. Today, Aloft and Marriott hotels are being built nearby, and the Brightline, a train line which will eventually connect Fort Lauderdale to Orlando via Miami, will have a station in Flagler.

McCraw is proud of this “collaborative community filled with these creative minds.”

There are ambitious plans here for street-level art spaces, bars and restaurants. McCraw chats excitedly about vertical gardens and pocket parks, explaining how the main street will be narrowed to create more space for shops and sidewalk cafés.

Over tea, McCraw tells me about his latest project, pointing to a huge water tower.

“We were having a beer one night and one of our curators said: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could treat the water tower like an art installation?’”

The city had already considered lighting up the tower, but McCraw’s plans are more ambitious.

“We’re going to fit it with interactive lights capable of creating any shade of colour, and people will be able to use smartphones to pick a colour and music, creating their own personalized sound and light show. Their creation will go in a kind of queue, and a system will send an alert so they know when their show is going to happen, and they’ll be able to watch it remotely if they’re not around.”

If McCraw’s plans come to fruition, we could soon see this historic structure lit up with proposals, birthday wishes and good luck messages.

Tamara Hinson was hosted by the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, which didn’t review or approve this story.

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